A touch panel is an input apparatus for moving a cursor by moving a finger on a smooth panel, and is frequently applied to laptop computers, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDA) or other electronic apparatus since the touch panel is extremely thin. For that the touch panel does not adopt a common mechanical design like a mouse or a keyboard, it is rather convenient to maintain the touch panel. As modern electronic products getting lighter and thinner day by day, the touch panel serving as an input apparatus becomes more widely applied.
A principle of the touch panel is that the number and positions of touches on the touch panel touched with a finger of a user are sensed by sensors on the touch panel, and sensing values corresponding to the touches are generated. A hand gesture recognition apparatus recognizes a hand gesture of the user according to the sensing values to perform a corresponding operation, e.g., moving a cursor, open a file, and the like.
FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a conventional touch panel that generates corresponding sensing values according to situations of touched sensors in areas of the touched panel. A plurality of sensors are disposed on the touch panel in a first coordinate axis direction (defined as an x axis). Taking a capacitive touch panel as an example, each of the sensors senses a voltage difference between a capacitor to generate a corresponding sensing value. The sensing values are different in response to situations of the touched sensors. In prior art, the number of fingers touching on the touch panel and a hand gesture are determined according to the number of peaks of a distribution of the sensing values, and a to-be-operated operation is accordingly determined Referring to a dashed ellipse A, a peak presents, meaning that an area on the touch panel corresponding to the peak is a touched point. A dashed ellipse B corresponds to another touched point. When there are simultaneously two touched points, it means that the touch panel is touched by two fingers. In the prior art, the hand gesture of the user is determined according to the number of fingers touching the touch panel, and different hand gestures correspond to different touch operations of the user. For example, when the user makes a first hand gesture, a system performs an operation of moving a cursor on a screen as the user moves a touched point; when the touch panel determines that the user makes a second hand gesture, the system performs an operation of scrolling a window as the user moves the touched point. Accordingly, the user may complete operations of different functions via different hand gestures on a same touch panel.
However, the foregoing conventional technique has disadvantages. For examples, when touched points are too close to each other, e.g., a child touches the touch panel with his two fingers, errors may occur in the determination mechanism of the conventional hand gesture recognition apparatus to misjudge the sensing values generated by the two fingers as being generated by one single finger since the corresponding sensing values generated by the sensors are too close to each other with reference to the dashed ellipse B in FIG. 1.
Therefore, a hand gesture recognition method applied to a touch panel and associated apparatus capable of more accurately and more effectively determining a hand gesture of the user is a key for determining whether the touch panel is more convenient applied.